1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic business card processing device and method, and more specifically, an electronic business card processing device and an electronic business card processing method for executing electronic business card processings relevant to electronic business cards, a computer readable medium recording computer programs for executing the electronic business card processing method for electronic business cards.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instead of giving another person a business card in a paper form, usually, personal information (hereinafter, referred to as business card information) including a name, an organization name, a telephone number, etc., described in the business card is brought to other person by using an electronic mail through the Internet. As a data format of the business card information used in Internet communications, “RFC 2426-vCard MIME Directory Profile” 1998 is well known.
The business card information to be transmitted in this data format includes a business card image and a plurality of sets of character strings of personal information to be composed with the image. For example, a business card is displayed on the display screen of a receiving side computer as shown in FIG. 1.
The electronic business card shown in FIG. 1 denotes a business card image 100, a company name 101, a title 102, a personal name 103, a postal code 104, a company address 105, an e-mail address 106, a telephone number 107, and a URL 108. In communications of information on the business card, normally, information including character codes of these pieces of information in predetermined variable length or fixed length fields is usually received by a receiving side computer. The receiving side computer arranges the character codes of the fields in a predetermined layout, and a converted image is composed with the business card image 100 and displayed on the display screen.
However, in the case of conventional use of information on an electronic business card, a business card is only displayed on a computer. This poses several problems in which a displayed business card hinders the visual utilization of a user.
First, there is no relation between a business card being displayed and editing of information on the business card. For example, for editing information on a business card, a separate interface which has no relation to the business card being displayed is prepared.
Furthermore, one of the problems is that electronic business card management software occupies the information on the electronic business card. If various pieces of information included in information on an electronic business card can be extracted and released to other application software, more effective information on the electronic business card can be utilized. Furthermore, it is considered that such a method makes it possible to provide business card information that appeals to the sense of sight or hearing to a user, and acquires and provides information relating to the electronic business card information.